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- May 2, 2020
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I don't have an Intel 2.5Gb Ethernet port on my AMD motherboard, but just wanted to see what would happen if I installed a secondary Ethernet card in a Monterey 12.x system. I didn't disable the existing built-in Ethernet port.
I decided to install the NC110T as I found that AppleIntelE1000e.kext would work with the Intel 82572GI controller.
New Ethernet port shows as Built-in in Hackintool > System > Peripherals.
Hackintool> System > Peripherals
This may feel like we need to jump through a lot of hoops to get the desired result - a working Ethernet port on MacOS Monterey! But it is a lot less hassle than reinstalling macOS Big Sur and all the apps and settings to get a system back up and running.
There are other Intel Gigabite Ethernet cards available, using similar chipsets, most if not all can work in macOS in the same manner, with the correct kext.
I decided to install the NC110T as I found that AppleIntelE1000e.kext would work with the Intel 82572GI controller.
- I installed the HP PCIe NIC in a spare x8 slot (all that was available)
- Booted in to Monterey using OpenCore 0.7.5.
- The new NIC wasn't discovered by macOS, not surprising.
- I then downloaded AppleIntelE1000e.kext.
- Mounted the EFI partition on my macOS SSD
- Copied the AppleIntelE1000e.kext to the /EFI/OC/Kexts folder
- Added an entry to the config.plist for the kext, using ProperTree's OC Clean Snapshot feature.
- Saved the config.plist and rebooted the system.
- Navigated to System Preferences > Network pane, to see that the NIC was not added automatically.
- So I clicked the '+' sign at the base of the list of Network devices and added a 2nd Ethernet device, which appears in the list of available devices.
- Selected the 'Apply' button to confirm the creation of the new Ethernet2 device.
- The Ethernet card was immediately provided with an IP address and set as en2. The original Ethernet was set with en0 and my WiFi is set with en1.
- Navigated to 'About this Mac' > System Information > Ethernet report, to see what if anything had changed.
- The new NIC was showing with the name 'Ethernet', with the AppleIntelE1000.kext loaded.
- I could browse the Internet and my local network using the port.
- The new Ethernet port now showed up in the Hackintool > System > Peripherals, but the device was not showing as 'Built-In', like the WiFi and other Ethernet port.
- I navigated to the Hackintool > PCIe tab and Updated the PCIID's (looks like download icon) in the PCIe device list.
- I then used the Export function icon, to export the PCIe data from Hackintool.
- The Export function creates 4 files on the desktop.
- pcidevices.dsl
- pcidevices.json
- pcidevices.plist, and
- pcidevices.txt
- The Export function creates 4 files on the desktop.
- I opened the pcidevices.plist file with ProperTree and found the 82572EI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) device section.
- The Device Path for new Ethernet was PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1.0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x0)
- Mounted the EFI partition on my macOS drive.
- Opened my OC config.plist with ProperTree and navigated to the DeviceProperties > Add section.
- I copied the 82572EI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) device section in the pcidevices.plist to the DeviceProperties > Add section in my config.plist.
- Added a new child under the PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1.0x1)/Pci(0x0,0x0) section.
- Named the new child 'built-in' > Data > <01>.
- Changed the AAPL,slot-name entry from 'Internal@0,20,0' to something I would understand, 'PCIE x8 slot-3'
- Saved the changes to the config, closed ProperTree and rebooted the system.
New Ethernet port shows as Built-in in Hackintool > System > Peripherals.
Hackintool> System > Peripherals
This may feel like we need to jump through a lot of hoops to get the desired result - a working Ethernet port on MacOS Monterey! But it is a lot less hassle than reinstalling macOS Big Sur and all the apps and settings to get a system back up and running.
There are other Intel Gigabite Ethernet cards available, using similar chipsets, most if not all can work in macOS in the same manner, with the correct kext.